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First Kallis saved his team with the bat, then without the ball, he saved India. It is Kallis who drew the series – with what he did, and even more so, with what he could not do.

Somehow, Sachin was similar. The runs in the first innings, and Boucher’s wicket in the second, more than hundred runs later. We know why Kallis didn’t bowl, MS, why didn’t Sachin?

Both guys worked at outdoing each other, and if Ponting was playing, who knows, would he have bowled again, or at least batted again?

In the second innings, with both Sachin and Kallis, the cricket sage took over. With Kallis it was a sankisadhu, what with those reverse sweeps, with Sachin, there was an attempt to bury the ball with the bat.

There was a quality of silence to their batting – it absorbed the mayhem, diluted it, spat it out as calm. The scoring ceased to matter, and if test cricket was dying, this was one helluva eulogy.

Around Kallis, Boucher absorbed some of the sage’s light and shone – he played similar shots, the maneuver from off to on. Around Sachin, Bhajji was blessed enough to take on the counter.

Finally Kallis, Boucher, Sachin, Bhajji negated each other – two hundreds, a fifty, seven wickets, three catches. Steyn was playing, but he was part of another plot, one with Bhajji, that involved whacking each other for sixes, and dismissing the other once. Gratification.

What else? India has not lost a test with Che Pujara, two wins, one draw so far.